General Membership Meeting
June 25, 1999
New Orleans, LA
Meeting Agenda
1) Introductory Comments by German Resources Project Chairs John Van Oudenaren and Lou Pitschmann (15 minutes). Brief overview of evening's agenda; summary of current state of the German Resources Project, update on current Project activities.
2) Presentation by librarians from Die Deutsche Bibliothek (still pending) (20 minutes).
3) Discussion of 'consortial' negotiating for electronic resources; presentation of offer by Directmedia for German online texts. (15 minutes)
4) Introduction of the four working group agendas by respective working group leaders.
5) Working Groups Breakout Sessions (one hour). (Individual agendas will be provided by each working group leader: see below)
6) Short report of the working groups a plenary group (5-10 minutes per group).
Minutes
German Resources Project (GRP): General Membership Meeting
Friday, June 25, 1999, 7:30-9:45PM. Royal Sonesta Hotel, New Orleans, LA.
Chair Lou Pitschman introduced the Project and presented a brief overview of the GRP meetings held in Goettingen in March 1999. He then introduced the working group leaders. First the working group leaders presented their work so far, then the group divided into the breakout sessions. The meeting ended with brief reports of the results of the breakout sessions by the working group leaders. Below the reports of the working group leaders in their words.
Document Delivery Working Group (chair: Sem Sutter)
Sem C. Sutter (University of Chicago), chair of the working group, summarized its progress to date and outlined its short- and long-term priorities. Its major accomplishment is the imminent launch of the GBVdirekt/North America document delivery system which has been tested by four North American libraries during the winter and spring. At its heart is GBVdirekt, the sophisticated Web-based system developed cooperatively by member libraries in the Gemeinsame Bibliotheksverbund centered at Göttingen. A single search interface makes the holdings of many German academic and state libraries accessible and allows easy electronic ordering of articles in the same search session, transmitting requests directly to a library holding the needed material. Requested material is scanned and, in most cases, sent by email (as an attached TIFF file) to the library making the request, typically within 48 hours.
The group laid foundations via email for very productive work together in March in Göttingen where they addressed issues raised by testing and developed registration, deposit, and accounting procedures managed cooperatively by ARL and GBV. Members of the German Resources Project that wish to order documents via GBVdirekt/North America must establish deposit accounts with ARL. A minimum of $500 is required to open an account, but higher deposits are accepted if a large volume of orders is anticipated. GBV will send quarterly statements to ARL. Upon request, participants may obtain a copy of the statement to verify their activity. The document delivery fees charged by German libraries vary, but the typical charge is $10 for email delivery of an article of up to 20 pages with a cost per page beyond that.
Currently the working group is putting finishing touches on a GBVdirekt/North America homepage for German Resources Project members. It includes sections explaining registration, deposit, and accounting procedures; help for searching, ordering, and tracking; contact information; and a direct link to the GBV databases. Sem distributed a handout showing some screens from the prototype homepage and a sample search and order session. He emphasized that, while the North American impetus for this project has come from Germanists, the universe of material accessible via GBVdirekt is much broader. Many of the articles supplied to the University of Chicago to date have been in the sciences and social sciences.
The working group's immediate priorities are the completion of the homepage (it has since been mounted at: http://www.gbv.de/direkt/NA/frameset.htm) and appropriate publicity promoting the new service to interlibrary loan librarians and bibliographers in German Resources Project member libraries. In its Göttingen meetings the group discussed further, future initiatives: 1) the desirability and viability of extending international cooperation to loans of returnable items, and 2) delivering documents from North American libraries to German institutions, perhaps by means of the CIC Virtual Electronic Catalog or OCLC. As GBVdirekt/North America begins to function smoothly, the working group can devote its attention to these projects.
Breakout session of the Document Delivery Working Group
Attendees: Roger Brisson, Mary Jackson, Lou Pitschmann, Sem C. Sutter
In its brief break-out meeting the working group concentrated on practical matters related to GBVdirekt/NA.
HOMEPAGE: Roger has mounted a prototype version of Sem's draft of the documentation on administrative procedures and search & order help. Roger's design uses frames in a helpful but unobtrusive way. Sem would welcome further review and refinement of the texts. Roger agreed to write about system requirements and file handling and add his text to the page on "Formats". The group concluded that the server at Göttingen was the best place to mount the page (and this has been accomplished in July).
PUBLICITY: After some discussion about promoting GBVdirekt/NA widely to ILL departments across the country, the group agreed that it would be wisest to begin with the existing membership of the German Resources Project. Any expanded publicity should wait until later after this primary constituency has taken hold of the service and we know that it is functioning smoothly. Mary mentioned that September's issue of the ARL Bimonthly Report will highlight the German Resources Project and will also publicize GBVdirekt/NA. The group agreed to direct "roll-out" publicity to two prime audiences in member libraries. Mary will write a letter of welcome to the heads of ILL at GRP institutions, explaining and promoting the service from an ILL perspective. The working group will seek establishment of a listserv for ILL heads in GRP libraries. This can be a vehicle for Mary's letter, but also an ongoing place to post updates and changes and to facilitate information-sharing among GBVdirekt/NA users. Sem will compose a similar letter, mutandis mutandi, for bibliographers on the GRP listserv (GERBIB).
OTHER GBVDIREKT ISSUES: The group wondered about the feasibility of transmitting scanned articles directly to ARIEL machines in North American libraries. There could be efficiencies as well as ease of handling at the receiving end. Are supplying institutions able/willing to work this way?
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS: Loans of returnable items and North American delivery of documents to German institutions remain on the working group's agenda. There is a need for further information gathering and assessment.
Collection Development Working Group (chair: Michael Olson, represented at the meeting by Nancy Boerner)
At the Friday, June 25, Summer Meeting of the German Resources Project, the CDWG reported on its activities undertaken since the March working session in Germany. Attending were Gordon Anderson, Nancy Boerner, Jeffrey Garrett, Tom Kilton, Stephen Lehmann, Barbara Walden.
Jeff Garrett and Tom Kilton presented preliminary work they had done on a prototype for identifying strong collections in GRP libraries; contact information will be included. Barbara Walden offered to try to provide information on collection strengths using the RLG conspectus. It was decided to proceed in increments, beginning with only 15-20 institutions that have strong collections in areas that may be of particular interest to German institutions. It is expected that the North American contacts will act merely as channels for information about their own collections and similar ones at other institutions. The information put together on GRP collections will be added to the German WEBIS site, which lists all the German research libraries with special collecting focuses. The group felt this project could help to create a virtual meeting place for subject specialists on both sides of the Atlantic.
With ARL's agreement Roger Brisson has mounted the National Title Count on the Web in a preliminary fashion; more work needs to be done to make it accessible to German libraries.
Lou Pitschmann, incoming co-chair of the GRP (with John Van Oudenaren of LC) asked the Collection Development Working Group if it could agree to take on the responsibility for dealing with at least two collections of East German materials currently available free to interested nstitutions. It would be necessary to find libraries willing to catalog and shelve them (or parts of them). One of the collections is from a public library, the other is from the library of the Paedagogische Hochschule in Erfurt, which has closed. A magnetic tape is available of the holdings of the latter collection, in which titles on linguistics and pedagogy predominate. Lou noted that this is a one-time opportunity to obtain materials from an interesting period in German history that would otherwise be destroyed. The WG decided to discuss at its next meeting, on June 28, 1999, the possibility Lou presented.
GRP Collection Development Working Group Minutes 6/28/99 (Excerpts)
The CDWG met for about 45 minutes on Monday morning, June 28. Present were Gordon Anderson, Nancy Boerner, Roger Brisson, Jeff Garrett, Tom Kilton, Jim Niessen, Barbara Walden.
The WG discussed the question put to it by Lou Pitschmann at the Friday GRP meeting. The consensus was that the group would be interested in working out procedures to take responsibility for distributing available GDR collections to interested GRP libraries. The WG would try to stablish principles for dealing with such offers (for example, the collections would only be accepted with no strings attached), and how to manage them within the GRP. It was felt that a project manager should be identified from the WG. It will also be necessary to identify an institution that would be willing to mount a magnetic tape of the holdings from the Paedagogische Hochschule in Erfurt.
Nancy reported that the plan for a database of non-acquired materials has been suspended by the firm Otto Harrassowitz. They have had to revise the structure of their primary database, and will soon make it available in its entirety. They will investigate whether in the future it might be possible for them to make it searchable for non-sold items in a particular subject area, but they are not able to make a definite commitment at this time to doing so.
Bibliographic Control Working Group: (chair: Karl Fattig)
Karl Fattig reported that the Bibliographic Control Working Group is having its first face-to-face meeting tonight. The group will discuss ways to build a sense of community among Germanist catalogers. He reported that the AACR2 translation project, under the direction of Heidi Hutchinson and Monika Muennich is well underway, though awaiting permissions for clean copies of AACR2-e for translators.
Breakout Session of the Bibliographic Control Working Group
Present: Bruce Trumble, Gail Hueting, Karl Fattig, Roger Brisson. Guests: John Marner, Tamara Trujillo, Charlene Chou.
It is important to note that this was the first physical, face-to-face meeting of Bibliographic Control Working Group. The group discussed ways to increase communication and build a sense of community among Germanist catalogers and bibliographic control specialists.
The group decided that a first step should be to make contact with Germanist catalogers at other GRP institutions. In this communication, the Working Group will initially explain its role in the GRP, and invite
member-institution catalogers to the next meeting in January. One other purpose of the communication would be to ascertain whether an expanded electronic mailing list devoted to German bibliographic control issues is warranted. Finally, an important aspect of this work would be to flesh out in more detail the additional areas of expertise that Germanist catalogers have developed. For example, while some have much experience with subject authority work, others may have more experience with non-book formats. This is exactly the kind of information that the Working Group would like to gather and disseminate.
Eventually this call for participation should be distributed to other electronic mail discussion lists, ncluding, but not limited to: German-E, iNet Bib, Autocat, WESSList. A further avenue of recruitment is the WESS Directory.
The time frame for the initial communication is early Fall. Before this can happen, the group will finish discussing its preliminary mission statement.
Members of the Bibliographic Control Working Group are also participating in the AACR2 translation project. The status of the project is still ongoing. The AACR2 discussion list has been active.
Individual chapters have been assigned, and participants have begun to translate. The most intersting part of the project lies ahead.
Those attending were encouraged to visit the exhibit of the Deutsche Bibliothek. This is their first ALA exhibit.
Digital Libraries Working Group (chair: Michael Seadle)
The Digital Library Working Group developed a "clearing house" concept at its meetings in Goettingen. The clearing house has four parts: themes, resources, demand, and results. To facilitate this development, we organized four subcommittees: copyright, topics, existing sites, and clearing house operation. The latter particularly needs additional members. To varying degrees, these subcommittees have been working electronically since March.
The Digital Library Working Group attracted a significant number of German participants at the Goettingen meetings. This is particularly important, since we would like our digital library projects to be cooperative efforts. These German contacts need to be maintained and expanded, and we need to get
concrete projects started. The second round of the Digital Library Cooperative Research Grants should provide a particularly good opportunity for funding the US side of projects.
Breakout Session of the Digital Libraries Working Group:
Present: Michael Seadle, Jim Campbell, Richard Hacken, Barbara Walden, Helene Baumann. Guest: Johan van Halm.
* Jim Campbell agreed to put up a simple prototype ”Clearing house” that is essentially links to descriptions of relevant existing projects and new project proposals on remote sites. The target date for this is Oct. 15.
* Jim would like additional members on the clearing house subcommittee. He is alone at this point.
* After Oct 15, we will advertise the clearing house on German-E and other lists.
* Barbara Walden will work on a draft proposal for a digital library project on colonialism.
* Richard Hacken will work on a draft proposal for a digital library project on world war one.
* Michael Seadle will work on a draft proposal for a digital library project on witch trials, and he will try to get his done early to provide a model.
* Michael will also contact Karl Fattig and the bibliographic control working group about metadata issues.
